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Europe’s first reusable spacecraft prototype crashed during a landing test after its main parachute system detached during deployment, the European Space Agency (ESA) has confirmed.
The incident occurred on October 6 during a test on the Italian island of Sardinia. The spacecraft’s initial parachute worked as expected, but its larger, steerable parafoil came loose, leaving the test vehicle unable to slow its descent before hitting the ground.
The cause of the failure remains under investigation, and ESA has recovered the vehicle’s components.
“An independent investigation is ongoing to determine its root cause and inform the next steps,” an ESA spokesperson told Space.com.
The spacecraft, called Space Rider, is being developed as Europe’s first reusable, uncrewed orbital vehicle. It is designed to carry scientific experiments into space for up to two months before returning them to Earth for analysis.
Unlike many existing spacecraft recovery systems, Space Rider is designed to use a steerable parachute to guide itself towards a designated landing area, allowing it to make a more precise landing.
The failed test was intended to demonstrate this landing capability, which is essential for reusing the spacecraft after its missions.
The full-scale test model, roughly the size of a minivan, was released from a helicopter at an altitude of about three kilometres over a military testing range in Sardinia.
The failure followed an earlier unsuccessful test attempt in May, which was cancelled before the vehicle was released after a sensor detected a problem.
Despite the latest setback, ESA officials hope the incident will not delay the spacecraft’s development schedule.
Géraldine Naja, ESA’s director of space transportation, said the remaining qualification tests were not on the critical path towards the spacecraft’s launch.
She described the incident as unfortunate but stressed that testing and validation were essential parts of developing a space system.
Space Rider has also undergone successful tests of its parachute deployment and autonomous systems. Earlier this year, its heat-shield materials were tested in a plasma wind tunnel at temperatures of around 1,600 degrees Celsius.
ESA is targeting Space Rider’s first orbital mission for later this decade.